


The AU With the Christmas Haunting

by captainangua



Series: DeanCas oneshots [5]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Human, But also much weirder and sadder than originally planned], Christmas, Christmas Fluff, Gen, Ghosts, M/M, Minor Amelia Richardson/Sam Winchester, Professor Castiel, Psychic Abilities, Psychic Cas, Supernatural Elements
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-25
Updated: 2015-12-25
Packaged: 2018-05-09 04:16:45
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,647
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5525060
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/captainangua/pseuds/captainangua
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Dean, c’mon, you think your house is haunted and you don’t believe in people who can see them?”</p>
            </blockquote>





	The AU With the Christmas Haunting

**Author's Note:**

> Warning for mentions of past non-con, suicide and child death. All the fluffy Christmassy themes...? I mean I threw in some stupid Christmas outfits and hot Professor Sam for good measure, so I hope I kinda balanced things...

“Dean, I think you need help.”

Clunking the coffee mug down in front of his brother, whose voice was just dripping with sympathy, Dean rolled his eyes and sat himself down on his couch again. “Alright, I get it – I sound like I’m fresh off the boat from Crazytown. Didn’t need to hear it from you too, Sammy.”

“No! I mean… Dean, I don’t think you need psychological help, although, hey you have been though a lot, and…” Sam trailed off after seeing the look on Dean’s face. “Look, man, I believe you, but-”

“You believe me? You’re telling me you believe I’m being haunted.”

Sam shrugged. “Well, they weren’t exactly natural deaths, Dean. It seems likely that their energy might have-”

“Her energy, Sam. I’ve only seen the one.” And heard from the one, getting louder every fucking night he spent at home. “And so, great, first you grow your hair out to hippy lengths and now you’re telling me about this ‘energy’ crap. Want me to break out your favourite bong for you, Dr. Mystic?”

Sam glared back at him. “You’re telling me you’re being haunted and you want me to not take you seriously, is that it?”

Dean glowered, but he didn’t say anything. He hadn’t gone to their parents, or to any of the friends who were still kind enough to keep in touch with him because he knew exactly what they’d say. That this was guilt making him see things, hear the singing. They’d let him know in a nice way that he was losing it.

But Sam, who’d lapped up every paranormal conspiracy blog since he’d known how to work the internet… he’d known Sam would understand.

Which, come to think of it, might have been part of the reason Dean had delayed so long in telling him about it.

Sam sighed heavily and cradled his coffee mug in his hands, where it looked abnormally dwarfed. “Look, Dean, there’s this guy I know – he works in the theology department in my college… he helps people with problems like this. He’d be happy to help, Dean, I know he would be.”

Dean leaned forward in his chair, extending a finger in accusation. “You’re telling me that one of your nerdy lecturer buddies is a ghostbuster?”

“He’s not a ghostbuster,” Sam muttered into his coffee. “He’s a psychic.”

Dean waited a beat before speaking. “Honestly calling a priest for an exorcism sounds more appealing right now. At least they’re not allowed to ask for money for it.”

“But Dean he doesn’t even charge-”

“This is still worse than the quack idea, Sammy.”

“Dean, c’mon, you think your house is haunted and you don’t believe in people who can see them?”

“It’s not the house,” Dean said quietly.  “It’s me.”

Sam stared at him for a few moments before saying, “I’m calling this guy tomorrow. Or-” he continued as Dean looked up at him murderously to say something about paying for frauds, “I’m calling Mom.”

Dean huffed out a sigh of defeat. “Man, you are such a little bitch.”

Sam clapped his shoulder as he finished his coffee and stood up. “What’s family at Christmas for, jerk.”

*

At Dean’s suggestion, his only, in the whole mess he barely wanted any part in, he arranged to meet the psychic dude out in the coffee shop at the end of the street. He wasn’t such a big fan of playing host around his apartment as he might have been before, now that he was being maybe-haunted there, and Benny had told him the place made a good pie.

Which they were all out of, of course, by the time Dean made it in there from the snow. Not sure what to pick up for a weird, probably old, academic eccentric that thought he could see dead people, Dean picked up two of the holiday specials. If the psychic-dude didn’t like it, Dean had no problem with drinking both. He’d left off his morning drink that day and he needed some kind of boost to keep himself smiling or whatever it was that normal people did with their faces.

“Dean?”

Dean looked up from his coffee at the man now standing above him, hovering over the saved seat, and into the most incredible pair of blue-eyes he’d ever seen, only amplified by the large hipster specs covering them.

For a moment, Dean panicked. How did this guy know him? Was he someone from high school? (which had happened several times now, with Dean recognising none of them) An old fling maybe? Dean started a little at that one. If he had to pick a poster-boy for his ‘type’… But surely he’d remember a face like that.

“Hey…”

Blue eyes peered earnestly down at him. “Your brother, Sam, he told me you have a problem I might be able to help you with.”

Dean couldn’t help himself: he gaped. “You’re the psychic ghostbuster?”

The psychic ghostbuster blinked down at him before slowly pulling out the chair beside Dean. “I’m… I’m not sure I understand that reference.”

“Which part?”

The man’s mouth twitched up slightly and for a moment Dean wondered if he was being messed with. Then the psychic told him with complete sincerity that, “I’ve not seen any of the movies, but I’m fairly sure I’m not a ghostbuster. It always seemed to involve some kind of flawed science to what they were doing, and I’m afraid I’m a theology professor, not a nuclear physicist.”

He seemed too young to be calling himself a professor, Dean thought, before remembering his baby brother’s position as a lecturer.

“Well, ok, theology. I’m Dean,” he said with a solitary half-wave, before pushing the coffee he’d bought for the other over in his direction.

The not-ghostbuster rested his head to one side, regarding him as though Dean was some kind of strange bird. “Yes, I know. I’m Castiel Milton.”

“Bit of a mouthful first name y’got there Oda Mae.”

“Then call me Cas,” he said, before taking a slurp from one edge of his gingerbread mocha. It left a slight milkstache clinging to him, but Dean decided not to let him know. “Now tell me, how can I help you?”

“All business, huh?”

“What else would you like me to be?”

Dean’s eyes scanned the length of ‘Cas’ that was currently visible to him. What else? Well for starters Dean wouldn’t mind finding out what kind of figure the psychic cut under that hideous Christmas sweater.

Dean cleared his throat. “Right. Uh. So I might have a problem with a… a ghost, or whatever.”

“Might?”

Dean was about to snap something back or that when he noticed the guy was still being entirely serious. So he nodded instead. “Well I’m pretty fucking sure about the ghost part. Not so sure yet if it’s a problem.”

When Dean dared to flick his eyes back up from the table, the psychic was staring at him sympathetically. But not like… with any pity there. More like it was making Dean feel understood for once.

Could this kind of psychic read minds?

“Is it someone you loved?”

“I’m not crazy, alright?” Dean growled. “This isn’t just, ‘part of the grieving process’ or whatever fucking story-”

“Dean that’s not what I said. And you won’t ever hear something like that from me.”

Dean let his shoulders sag. And this was why he had next to no friends left.

“My daughter,” he choked out gruffly, looking back at the table.

“And do you only ever see her in the house?”

“Mostly, yeah. It’s where she – where they… But sometimes I can still hear… Are you taking notes?”

Castle looked up from  the pen and paper in his hand that had seemingly materialised from nowhere. “Well I don’t want to have ask you to repeat yourself. I wouldn’t like to be so insensitive.”

“Yeah, but…” Dean shook his head. This guy did this all the time or whatever. He was allowed to treat all this professionally, clinically, even if his ‘uniform’ for the job currently included a knitted polar bear that looked far more like the orc general from the Lord of the Rings than anything else.

“Dean, I’m sorry to have to put you through these questions, but to understand the nature of the haunting I will need to have some details about your daughter and her cause of death.”

“Emma. Her name was Emma.” Dean might have growled out the words, but already he could feel the fight escaping him. He’d known it would come down to this: to saying it all out loud.

“She was three years old.”

“Her mother – has she been suffering similarly…?”

“She’s dead – same way,” Dean clipped out, before letting out a long sigh. When he looked down at his hands, they’d started to shake slightly, and he was almost willing to blame that all on the coffee.

“It was my fault. Lydia and me, we’d basically been over since Emma was born, but we still shared the apartment, since neither of us could afford a lot of options. Being honest… we’d been too young and messed up to start dealing with a kid but we were – I was trying. And Emma – well, she did everything to help with that.”

Dean looked back up at the psychic who blinked at him, a blank slate listener. “You know those kids that are just honestly these little fucking rays of eternal sunshine? Like sure, she had her moments, but she was a really good kid. Spoiled totally rotten by my family, but it wasn’t turning her into a brat – she just like, she soaked up all the love and attention she ever got and churned it out again for the people needing it. People like her Mom.”

Dean shook his head and tried to stop his teeth from grinding. “Lydia wasn’t alright, hadn’t been for a long time. She’d always had this… thing, about control, and then, well then I think a lot of post-natal shit hit her pretty hard but she didn’t want to talk about it – not to me at least. She didn’t even really wanna see me…” Which wasn’t entirely true, Dean reminded himself in his head, but said nothing, “and anyway, I was out all the time – I was trying to hold onto two different jobs to keep up rent.” He paused and took a long drink of his coffee. “I think my Mom blames herself for not trying harder to get through to her. But this was on me. I wasn’t there.”

Dean didn’t speak for a long enough time after that for Cas to start asking questions. “Dean? What happened to them?”

“Overdose of sleeping pills. I came home from work one day and I just found them. That was Christmas day, two years ago now.” Dean met the psychic’s concerned wide eyes. “And this is the most I’ve stayed in the apartment this close to Christmas. First time I’ll be staying here Christmas Eve. And it…” Dean shook his head slowly. “And it always gets worse this time of year and I just can’t-” He cut himself off before managing, “I can hear her singing, Cas.”

With surprise, Dean noticed the pressure of another hand pressed over his own, reaching over the table. It was a strange comfort, especially since the guy didn’t seem the type to be too up on physical contact with total strangers.

“What does she sing, Dean?”

“Uh… that, that song from the Tangled movie. She loved that thing. Uh – ‘Mother knows best’.”

“A chilling choice,” Castiel noted, sounding of course entirely sincere as he picked up his mug again.

“You’re up on your Disney but not your ‘80s classics?”

Castiel shrugged, a little defensively. “My sister’s boys like that movie, and I do a lot of babysitting.”

“Hmm. The kids. Right.”

Cas glared at him, the barest hint of a smile showing on his face, before he wiped it away to ask his next question. “You say it’s getting stronger. Does this mean more frequent?”

Dean gave a non-committal headshake. “Well. That. But also… y’know, things start getting a little more Poltergeist.”

“In a way that seems violent toward you?”

“Lately… yeah, I guess,” Dean said slowly. He hadn’t even told his brother any of this. “I… well, look,” he grumbled as he yanked down his shirt collar to past where he knew the red welts were still shining. “I woke up the other morning because something had been scratching at my skin with their nails. But the room was totally empty.” He rolled his eyes. “’Cept. Y’know, all the usual play of the flickering lights, the bashing drawers and the Arctic temperatures.”

Castiel stared at him thoughtfully. “It’s unusual for a child ghost to become violent. Though you should be aware, paranormal activity is not necessarily reflective at all of a person’s personality – it’s the energy of their feelings that generally remain.”

Dean licked at his lips. They felt too dry. “So if my daughter wants me dead it’s nothing personal?” Dean smiled, feeling tired beyond anything. Outliving your kid tended and subverting that natural order tended to do that to you.

“She… she’s probably just angry I didn’t protect her, right? I went out every day and left her alone with her Mom, and-”

Balling his hands into tight fists, Dean fixed his eyes down again. Crying in front of a stranger, that wasn’t alright, Dean reminded himself fiercely. But the hand tightening down over his own dragged him back into the present.

“None of this was you fault,” Dean heard, and for a moment the certainty in the tone was actually enough to convince him of that.

“You sure about that?”

“Yes,” Cas said calmly, straightening his glasses with a small smile. “I’d also ‘bet’ that any feelings from you that you somehow deserve this will only be worsening you situation – feeding the negative energy focused against you.”

“Negative energies?” Dean tried for a smile. “Sounding a bit… zen, here.”

Castiel sighed. “Your capacity for scepticism is astonishing.”

“Hey. Nothing wrong with an open mind so long as you’re not keeping it empty.”

“True,” Cas cocked his head to one side again and Dean had the strange feeling that this guy was sizing him up. Hell, maybe he was reviewing the colour of Dean’s aura or some shit. “Now would it be alright for me to view the property?”

Dean swallowed. “Sure, why not. Let’s get this ghost train rolling.”

*

“So when did you figure out you had this ‘gift’?” Dean asked as they walked up the steps to the apartment together. Along with his Christmas sweater, someone had also knitted the guy a hat and scarf. Neither passed any kind of fashion muster, but Dean kinda admired the way Cas was wearing them – like it was no big deal. And despite him looking more like Dobby the fucking House Elf than a full grown man it strangely didn’t lessen his attractiveness at all.

Cas plunged his hands into the pockets of his tan coat and shrugged. “I worked out how to use it after my twin brother died. It might have been in me before, but I think it was practice that helped it along.”

Dean gaped at him. “Your… how old were you?”

The psychic looked back, considering. “Nine. And all that year following, I saw him. My sisters were determined to coddle me still further when I told them, and my parents were convinced it was only grief and guilt driving me to see things which weren’t there, but I knew. Jimmy just didn’t want to move on until he’d made sure I’d be ok alone.” Cas gave a small smile. “And I was, in the end.”

“So I might start seeing other… things, now?”

Cas looked thoughtful for a moment as Dean fumbled with his keys. “Maybe. Everyone reacts differently. I think it was easier for me because I wanted to see Jimmy, so it was only a matter of concentrating wider and harder on the world after that.” He smiled, in what was presumably meant to be in an encouraging manner. “I think if you want to you can always look away.”

Dean was having a hard time looking away now. Like, man, the guy had an intense stare.

Clearing his throat awkwardly, Dan pushed on his door handle and let them both inside. And Castiel’s reaction to stepping over the threshold was instantaneous.

“What?” Dean asked immediately as he felt Cas grip onto his arm tightly as though for support. “Cas, buddy, talk to me here.”

“Something…” Cas rolled his eyes around the room hesitatingly. “Something in this apartment wants you dead.”

Dean sighed, ignoring the new ache in his gut the words caused, and slung an arm around the other man. “Right. Let’s get you a seat and a drink then.”

Cynical as he might have been, he was pretty sure that no one was good enough to fake the drained pallor that Castiel’s face had taken on now; the confused and horrified reaction his eyes were having to the apartment, which suddenly seemed so much small, like the walls were closing in on them. And though Dean knew the door could swing back open for them again if he made it, he couldn’t help feeling trapped.

After shaking his head at the whiskey Dean had placed down in front of him, Cas sat on the sofa greedily glugging down a glass of water as he kept his eyes firmly glued to the ceiling.

“So… uh…” Dean said eventually, as he took a seat next to the shaking psychic.

Cas took a deep breath as he put his empty glass back down on the coffee table. “You’re right. I doubt moving would help you much, in the end. This is where, and for now, when, it happened, and so for now this is where the feelings are strongest, but this isn’t what they felt, this is about you, specifically.”

“So no biggie then.”

Dean’s strained smile dropped moodily as Cas looked up at him in horror. “Dean, this is serious. I’ve never felt anything so… so…” His eyes were wild now. “How have you even managed to keep living in this? You must be aware of how awful it makes you feel.”

“Huh. Well. Nightcaps help,” Dean said with an attempt at a wink as he picked up the whiskey he’d poured out for Cas. Then he shifted awkwardly about in his seat as the psychic continued to stare at him. “Thought that it was just the… y’know, the memories. My kid died here, and I did nothing to stop that. Not exactly rocket science to work out I haven’t been able to like the place since,”

“Well yes, but…” Cas looked exhausted venturing even this far into an explanation. Then he shook his head as though deciding something. “Dean, normally I’d suggest an attempt at making contact with the spirit, to help them figure out what it is they need in order to pass on, but the only thing I can think to recommend here is a full exorcism.”

Dean weakly raised an eyebrow. “You’re fucking with me, right?”

“I was training to be a priest: I know the theory.”

“But that… that would hurt Emma, wouldn’t it?”

Castiel looked at him incredulously. “Dean, she’s a ghost, it’s not really your child you’re seeing-”

“Yeah, just how she was feeling, I get it. But if that’s all I’ve got left of her?” And if this is what she thinks I deserve…

As if he’d been listening in on Dean’s thoughts, Cas gritted his teeth together and continued to glare at him.

*

In the end Castiel still wasn’t able to convince Dean into a big exorcism ceremony – not yet, anyway. Bit he had still left him with a lot of advice about salt, some funky-smelling candles, and his phone number, which felt satisfying to have, for… reasons. He’d also given up trying to get Dean to move away for Christmas at least, when the activity seemed to become worse. But this year Dean didn’t want to be driven out of his own home, and he didn’t want whatever part of Emma was still stuck here to feel that he was abandoning her again.

So Dean was sticking.

He called Sam to let him know how his big idea had ended up going down. But interested as Sam was in the apparent paranormal threat to Dean’s life, he could have sworn that his little brother was just as interested in how Dean had taken to Cas as a person.

“Yeah – he seem… better than I thought he’d be,” Dean admitted. “A little weird and nerdy but he seems to know what he’s talking about, and he hasn’t tried fleecing me out of my non-existent savings yet.”

“And he’s not exactly hard to look at either, is he?”

“Well yeah, and… what?” Dean tightened his grip on the phone. “Sammy is this all an over-complicated attempt at matchmaking from you?”

There was a long pause.

“Well obviously I suggested calling Cas because of what he does, but you have to admit-”

“What – you think this situation is really the perfect one to get me thinking about finding some jumpable bones?” The sex-hair and the boner-inducing voice that Dean had been unable to get out of his head all day were obviously completely irrelevant to this conversation.

“No, Dean it’s just… Well, Cas is a cool guy. And it’s been two years.”

“So what – I’m supposed to go move on like nothing happened?”

“No,” Sam practically growled into the phone. “But, I’m sorry, Lydia was a creepy control freak who never even let you get close to anyone else while you were living there with her – even years after you’d broken things off. But you didn’t need to stay celibate for her then and you sure as hell don’t now. And,” he added, before Dean had a chance to say anything himself, “You can’t keep on punishing yourself forever.”

Dean stayed on the phone, but, unable to think of anything to reply with, said nothing. But then Sam sighed loudly and Dean managed to put in a, “So. He’s single then, huh?”

“You’re telling me you didn’t ask him yourself already?” Sam asked, tone suddenly lightened.

“Ha. You’re funny. Oh, and tell your wife that anything she’s bringing this year to Mom’s is getting destroyed by my offering.”

“What’s he making?” Dean heard Amelia mutter in the background.

“Apple pie, sister. And let me tell you, the prototype here is already mindblowing.”

Sam’s voice returned. “She told me to tell you that you’re going down. Also, Dean… remember you’re always welcome over here – y’know, in case you need away from the apartment over the next few days…”

“Sammy, I can deal with being alone a couple of nights in my haunted house,” Dean assured him irritably.

A few hours later, and Dean wasn’t feeling so confident anymore. In fact after doing little apart from finishing up work on his ‘prototype’ and attempting to facebook stalk Castiel Milton (in vain, apparently the guy was entirely without any social media presence) Dean could admit to being panicky.

_How have you even managed to keep living in this?_

Dean ended up sleeping with the light on that night and he tried to convince himself he hadn’t meant to.

But even in his dreams apparently he couldn’t make it out of those walls and their memories. Memories _of Lydia waking him up with sex. Not in a sexy-sweet wake-up morning glory sorta way either – more in the, your-body-is-mine kinda way. It had been attractive, at first, the way Lydia had seen everything as some kind of power trip – intoxicating, even. But living with it – waking up to her digging her nails down into his collarbone – that was different, and felt much more like suffocating._

_Dean had put a stop, finally, to sharing a bed with her a few days after he woke up to her actually riding him. They’d been supposedly broken up already, by that point. But in the dream there couldn’t be any discussion, anything of Dean putting his foot down – there was just the possessive clawing of her nails against his skin, the way she’d let her hair cover her entire face, making her a stranger behind a veil – or a shroud -_

Dean woke up with a gasp that blew a cloud of hot air into the suddenly frozen room.

The singing had started again.

“Oh, no no no, no,” Dean muttered as he pushed his face back into the bed under a pillow. Determined as he’d felt earlier to reach out to his daughter’s ghost instead of running from it, or banishing it, now he was shivering with cold, it was the middle of the night, and he was terrified that he might have to look up and see her there again.

She was singing the reprise now, he noticed, through the pillow. Mumbling over some of the long words, sure, but Dean’s heart still swelled up to hear how well she got most of them. But, it was also starting to sound deliberate, the way she focused on some lines, some words…

“ _Don’t let him deceive you… I won’t say I told you so – no…_ ”

The singing was also getting closer. So close that Dean could almost imagine there was someone really breathing there by his ear. As he felt the tears shamelessly start flooding from his eyes and soaking into the sheets, Dean gulped. He hadn’t been there for her when she’d needed him. The least he could do now was look…

As he heard her coming to the end of her song, Dean cautiously started to remove the pillow.

“Emma?”

And there she was, right next to the bed and smiling slightly. She didn’t look alive exactly, but she wasn’t a transparent whisp either. As she held up her little hand towards his face with pleading eyes he almost felt like he might be able to feel her touch him there.

“ _Mother. Knows. Best_.”

Then she smiled brightly and faded, just as Dean felt like he’d worked up the courage to feel for her hand - and  Dean was alone again with tears all down his face.

But he wasn’t left crying there long. Almost the moment the figure of his daughter had disappeared, his bed started to shake violently, as though it was beset by its own miniature earthquake. Wiping furiously at his damp face, Dean growled out, “Alright, enough with the freakin’ poltergeist act already,” and swung his leg out of the bed. He’d taken to sleeping in his clothes again lately, and it helped him feel a little more prepared for whatever it was shaking at his bed.

“Emma, that’s enough!”

The bed rattling ceased for a moment, but then the bedroom door swung violently closed and Dean bit down on his lip as he started turning himself in a circle to see where an attack might come from.

“Emma, I know you’re angry with me – I know I wasn’t there when you needed me,” Dean tried again, voice cracking slightly. “But I’m here now. And I want to help, baby. You-”

Dean heard the whirring of the radio flying through the air towards the back of his head  just in time enough to duck and see it hit the wall and crack into pieces.

“Uh – you’re grounded? I guess?”

Something made the window open wide and snow was starting to fly into the room, making Dean feel caught in the middle of a blizzard.

“Y’mean it wasn’t cold enough in here for you already?”

It was when he heard his daughter start crying – the way she would when her Mom would tell her off, or when she understood that the Uncle Sam’s old Labrador had gone away to Heaven – that Dean couldn’t take it anymore. Not even stopping to grab a jacket, Dean jumped out the window onto the fire escape, and got as far away from that sound as he was able to. He’d never been able to listen to her crying and do nothing.

*

Cas was awake when Dean Winchester called him. With Anna living on the other side of the country from him now, he had to sit up pretty late if he wanted to catch her at a good time for a skype, and since talking to her twin boys always made him feel forcefully alert, he sat up to start looking up any new information that might help Sam’s brother with his problem instead of going to bed.

And because Cas really felt the man desperately needed help – not simply because he wanted to see him again.

Interestingly, he felt like he might have finally found something helpful on a website on Scandanavian folk-tales of all things when his phone started ringing with the obnoxiously loud Christmas song Hannah had programmed into it.

“Dean?”

“Hey!” The man sounded out of breath, but alive enough. “Didn’t mean to wake you up I just – uh…” He started to laugh humourlessly. “I just have an issue with a massage bed I didn’t order, and-”

“Dean, are you alright? What happened?”

“Well, I still have one pissed-off dead kid and a broken radio to show for it now, so I ran, because, hey, that shit was straight out of a bad Edlund novel-”

“Dean, please, breathe.”

Clutching tightly at his phone, Cas listened as the other man did as he asked.

“Alright. Now I live close by - why don’t you come over to mine and we’ll talk through what happened. I think I might have some more ideas that could help.”

He could almost hear the internal struggle Dean was going through at those words. Despite the phone call, Cas got the impression the man was determined not to depend on anyone’s help – but he could also tell that the last thing Dean would be able to do that night would be return to his own bed.

“Sure,” Cas heard eventually. “Where’d you live?”

Dean apparently walked fast – he was ringing Castiel’s doorbell only twenty minutes later, and Cas knew he’d been exaggerating earlier about their close proximity.

“Hey,” Dean said as he brushed out snow from his hair when Cas answered the door. “So. You got anything to warm a guy up here?”

Castiel was persuaded by Dean’s exhausted gait as he walked through the doorway to fix up his Grandma Milton’s famous ‘toddy’ for the weary visitor.

“So what you found then?” Dean asked as he sank down on Cas’ couch. Cas wondered briefly if he should point out that the drink was too strong and hot to be drinking so fast, but figured it wasn’t what Dean would want to hear.

“Dean… you’re bleeding.”

In the same spot as his earlier scars, Cas noticed. Which was an odd – they looked like fingernail scratches, which would be odd to see from a three year old to say the least, confirming some of Castiel’s new suspicions.

Dean shrugged off Cas’ concerns. “It’s fading.” He snorted. “’Sides, it helps remind me I didn’t dream it up.”

Cas sat down beside him. “I remember that feeling,” he said, smiling slightly. “But… uh, what I found gave me a few ideas.” Dean raised his eyebrow and took another long drink.

“There’s this legend that spreads through a lot of Europe about murdered ghosts of children revealing the identity of their, usually parental killer – and sometimes even through song.”

Dean’s face hardened and his whole body seemed to close in on itself. “But… nothing new there for Emma to tell me. Not like I don’t know who… Unless… she _is_ blaming me for this?”

Cas shook his head immediately. “No, I don’t think so. Dean – I think – what if she’s trying to warn you about something?”

Dean stared blankly and motioned for Cas to continue.

Cas took a deep breath. “Dean, it was difficult to… to think, even, when I was in your home, but now with hindsight, I’m almost certain that it wasn’t just Emma in that house. Now, when did the singing start? Was it before or after the other activity?”

Dean rolled his eyes back into his head. “Uh… after?”

Cas grinned. “Good!”

“Good?”

“Yes! If I’m right I think Emma was trying to tell you in the best ways she could think of that she wasn’t alone, and that you were in danger... What if that’s her mother still there with her? And in terms of ‘unfinished business’…”

Dean clenched his jaw. “She had a drink left out for me,” he mumbled.

“What?”

Dean looked up and Cas almost flinched at the anger and pain he saw there. “I always wondered. If it was punishment for me to have me find them like that, or if she meant to take me with them. Because she offered me a drink that morning,” Dean’s hand clenched up tightly. “And she didn’t like it when I didn’t take it. I forgot until after, and by then it had gone and I never got to know.”

“Dean…”

“So what you’re thinking is that she didn’t manage to kill me then, keeps coming back to finish it, and Emma’s been trying to help all this time?”

“Dean, I didn’t mean to assume-”

“No – you – you’re right. I know you are.” Dean stared at the wall for a long time and Cas wasn’t sure whether he should say something – or do something, try to give him a hug or find some other way to comfort him. Then finally Dean turned back and smiled. “So. You said something about an exorcism idea?”

Cas nodded. “I can get everything we’d need, and I know the words. But first… Dean, you’re welcome to sleep here. I don’t think you going back into that apartment tonight is going to solve anything, and I have a guest room I’m not using.”

Dean sagged back on the couch. “Huh. Well, I’ve not exactly been getting a lot of sleep lately…”

Cas smiled and stood up. “We’ll sort this out tomorrow. Until then, you’ll definitely need some rest before you can be any use to yourself. Exorcisms take considerable effort out of a person, and I can imagine the emotional strain of this will obviously be-”

Cas looked down at Dean and couldn’t help a fond smile start spreading over his face when he saw that the man was already asleep. “I’ll bring some blankets over,” he said quietly, and left the room.

*

Dean woke up to the sound of a smoke alarm.

“Are you fucking kidding me?” Dean asked as he rubbed roughly at his eyes and walked over into the kitchen. “What was that originally, man – bacon?”

Cas looked sheepish as he lowered the hands desperately still waving a towel at the alarm to dispel the smoke. “I’m not much of a cook.”

Dean bit down on his lip to hold back a laugh as he looked down at the charred remains in Castiel’s frying pan. “They… uh, they don’t ask you to host Christmas much then?”

Cas smiled as he poked at the pan with a large spatula. “Neither me or my sisters are terribly religious, and we’re spread pretty far apart. If we can manage a group skype tomorrow we’ll be doing Christmas better than most years.”

“So what, you’re doing nothing for the holidays?”

Castiel shrugged at him, a little self-consciously. “Is that a problem?”

Dean snorted. “My Mom would say so.”

“Is she very traditional with Christmas then?”

“Nah, not really. So long as we get the family under the one roof, eat something and watch _Die Hard_ or the Muppets or something and she’s happy. But she’d definitely have something to say about anyone spending Christmas on their own.”

Dean looked Cas, who was now wearing a different awful Christmas sweater and looking lost as he held up the spatula, and thought for only a moment before saying, “Y’know, she’d ask you along if she was here.”

Cas blinked. “Oh, I would hate to impose…”

Dean clapped him on the shoulder on his way over to search through the cupboards for other potential breakfast foods. “Tell you what – we bust this ghost problem, you come back with me to back me up that my pie’s better than anything Amelia’s come up with." And Sam would probably never stop teasing him about the date he’d got him for Christmas, but Dean would deal with that later.

“Uh… ok?” But Cas was shyly grinning at him now and Dean knew he’d made a good call.

“Awesome,” Dean said, and casually crossed over the kitchen back to Cas, only just catching himself from kissing him. He coughed. “Right, uh…”

“Right,” Cas repeated, smiling up at him like he knew everything Dean had just been thinking about doing and he didn’t mind at all. “Uh, I could go out and get us breakfast food?”

“Yes,” Dean agreed, nodding fiercely and feeling painfully aware of how closely they were still standing. “And I can, uh…”

“Read over the notes on exorcisms I left out for you!”

“Right – awesome. And I can… I can make us some coffee.”

Cas nodded in seeming relief, though he still didn’t try to move. Instead he raised an arm and pointed. “I keep the coffee up there and – just in case – the salt is down there.”

Dean licked his tongue over his lower lip. “That’s… uh, that’s pretty boy scout of you.”

“Well, you can never be too careful,” Cas said with a small smile. “I’d hate to leave you here unprotected. I fear that would make me an even worse host than burning breakfast has already.”

“Huh,” Dean said, finally standing back slightly. “So what, I just throw it at them?”

Cas tipped his head to one side. “Either that, or just stand in a salt circle. Nothing can get to you in there.”

“Right, I’ll remember.”

*

Since honing his abilities into a more effective tool for himself, Cas had experienced several odd sightings of the lingering dead: he’d once had an older man who’d died there approach him in a public toilet and ask him who won the World Series in 1998 – but something about the visit he had in the grocery store that day still felt stranger. Because he had never seen this ghost-girl in his life, but he knew her immediately – he saw Dean in her at once.

He was third in the queue in the middle of the store’s pre-Christmas rush, clutching his basket full of materials to make pancakes (which he hoped that Dean, at least, would be capable of creating) when he spotted her.

“Emma?”

Everyone in the queue turned to look at him, staring at nothing – a habit he’d thought himself grown out of. But now he found that he didn’t care what any of them thought as he left the queue and knelt down to look the spirit in the eye. She stared back at him, looking terrified.

Cas found that particularly child ghosts often had issues with talking. Jimmy hadn’t ever said a word, but they’d never needed that to understand each other.

“Dean – your Dad – is he in trouble?”

The girl hesitated for a moment before nodding her head.

Cas sighed as his heartrate rapidly picked up speed. “And your Mom – she didn’t want you to say anything, did she?”

The little girl started to cry, silently, without looking away.

“Well, it’s going to be alright,” Cas assured her, praying to the God he was no longer sure he believed in that he was correct in that. “I’m going to help him. You don’t need to worry about him anymore, Emma.”

Slowly, the little girl nodded her head, and gave a slight smile before disappearing. Cas hoped that she’d gone for good this time, that she’d found some kind of peace, finally.

But to be more sure her mission had been successful, Cas was going to have to run.

*

The salt circle had been a useful thing to know about, Dean thought wildly, and with some joy as he stared at the ghost of the women that he might have been in love with, once.  He’d drawn it up as soon as he’d heard the windows bang open, and had almost convinced himself he was just being paranoid when Lydia materialised and actually _snarled_ at him. She was currently making him feel a little like an animal caught in a small cage at a zoo, the way she was stalking her way round the salt on the floor and glaring at him, but it was worth it to feel like he’d finally clawed back some degree of control over himself.

“So,” he said, “Can’t get me in here, huh? Man, I bet that bites. Come all the way back from the dead and you can’t even kill the guy you’ve been looking for.”

Lydia’s face contorted into something that no longer looked human as a vase, that Dean was hoping Cas didn’t like, flew towards his head and only just missed. He caught his breath quickly and whistled. “You need to work on your aim.”

“And you,” Lydia hissed out, as though speaking was a great effort, “need to be _quiet_.”

“Or what, you’ll throw more pottery at me? Sorry, hon, but you took the only thing away that was keeping me from hating you.” Dean forced out a harsh laugh. “C’mon. What’s worth all this effort? You could barely even stand me by the end.”

“You were supposed to be _mine_.”

The glass on the windows started cracking slightly.

“And you were supposed to die with your family. Instead of leaving us – leaving _me_.”

“Well, that’s… great,” Dean managed slowly, reminding himself that there was nothing corporeal there for him to hit out at. “But you’re out there, and I’m in here, so what’re you gonna do about it?”

In hindsight, it might have been the wrong thing to say.

Lydia’s form seemed to shift in the air briefly before reappearing by the gas cooker, which she’d switched on.

“Aw. Well thought out plan there, honey. I’m more likely to blow up than I am die before Cas gets back.”

“The doors are shut,” she said, as though that were the end of that. “And you’ll be dead before he gets home.” She smiled slightly, and Dean wanted to think of it as something that made her look unhinged, ill, but he could make out nothing but a strange yet undeniable sanity there.

Dean let his eyes slide to the coffee table where the exorcism was written out, wondering if it was worth running for it now. But Lydia had already noticed him looking and the paper blew off the the table to the other side of the room. “Oops,” she murmured, a smile tugging at her lips, which were red, like she always painted them special occasions.        

Then just as Dean wondered whether he should try running again the phone started ringing – not Dean’s cell, Cas’ landline, which almost immediately passed through to its answering machine and a message put out loudly to the whole room.

A message in Latin.

“Now there’s a man who sounds good speaking a dead language,” Dean said with a smirk as Lydia glared at him, her face contorting in what might have been pain. “Y’know I might still have felt guilty about asking him out sometime if it wasn’t for all this? But I’m getting it now. My pain-in-the-ass little brother was right about this one.”

As Cas’ voice continued to crackle through the phone, Lydia’s form became less and less solid, and it felt like a weight was lifting off of Dean’s back with every piece of her that was leaving.

“Yeah, he was right. It’s giving you a respect you never fucking deserved by not looking at anyone since. Because you were even jealous of Emma, weren’t you? If I wasn’t doting on you, then you didn’t like how I was spending my time. Well, Lyd, I hope you – oh.” Dean frowned at the empty space in front of him. “C’mon, I was having a cathartic speech thing – you can’t bail on me _now_.”

Just as Dean was about to put a toe out of the salt line the front door banged open and he was momentarily frightened into staying put - before seeing that it was Cas there in the doorway and relaxing. “You scared the shit out of me, you sonovabitch.”

Cas smiled weakly as he quickly crossed the room to hold Dean tightly in his arms. “Better me than her.”

“Huh. I guess. If you brought food.”

“Didn’t manage that. Your daughter interrupted my shopping trip.”

Dean bit down on his lip as he stayed with his chin nestled on the psychic’s collarbone. “Cas?”

“She’ll be ok now, Dean.”

“She’s… she’s not stuck here anymore?”

“No.”

Dean let his eyes squeeze close tight. He could grieve properly now, maybe. At the very least he maybe wouldn’t need to stay stuck.

“Cas?”

“Yes, Dean?”

“How d’you feel about watching _Die Hard_?”

Cas finally pulled away, but kept his hands clutched around Dean’s arms, silently letting Dean know in all the ways he was currently needing that he wasn’t going anywhere. And then he nodded solemnly. “I have a box-set, but I’ve only seen the fourth one.”

“The… _fourth_ one.”

“Yes?”

They didn’t move from Cas’ couch for the whole of Christmas Eve, all the time barely saying two sentences to each other. And if Dean let the psychic pet at his hair until he fell asleep sometime through the second movie, then neither of them felt the need to mention that. Some things didn’t ever need to be talked about.

*

**Author's Note:**

> So this was mainly based on a few different Scandinavian ghost stories... Hope it worked out? Got a little sidetracked by the day so it got more than a little rushed at the end... But hey, let's pretend I'm American or something and it's still Christmas Eve :D


End file.
